As a teacher I take great pride in working as a guide for my students. I strive to let my passion for analytical thinking and argumentation come through to the student at an individual level. A critical part of my own learning style is speaking up, asking a lot of questions, and discussing ideas with peers in small groups. I've always found this kind of active engagement gives me much more ownership over information than acting as a passive vessel. For me, remembering an article several years after reading it usually starts by recalling what content I disagreed with or wanted to modify. Accordingly, I think finding ways to pull students into a collaborative critical space is a central task for any teacher.
I have routinely shown an ability to let students work through problems and create organic solutions. As an Environmental Educator this could mean watching individuals struggle to tie a new knot or identify erosion characteristics in the pouring rain. In a more traditional classroom this process might just be marked by an awkward silence. In either case having an instructor step in out of frustration just when actual problem solving is occurring would be a mistake. I firmly believe it is incumbent upon a skilled instructor to recognize when and how to provide direction to a class. It is even more important for the instructor to know when to keep quiet. I hope to continually improve my ability to negotiate this process and improve my abilities as a teacher.
By engaging a class with energy, high expectations and an emphasis on student-contributions I believe a more efficacious experience can be attained. I am continually looking for inspiration from art, nature, technology, and my peers to reaffirm how knowledge and discovery arises from a variety of factors acting together. Teaching is at the core a mutual process that enlightens both instructor and student, and it is this mutualism that interests me most.
